bay area 2026 | february 6th - 8th
Join us at the frontiers of non-human welfare
Sentient Futures Summit is the meeting place of AI experts, welfare researchers, animal advocates, and passionate thinkers seeking to have an impact. We'll spend 3 days networking and learning how to steer AI and other technologies for the welfare of animals and potentially sentient artificial minds.
This is the 5th conference of our series, which has served as a meeting place for hundreds of thinkers, innovators and advocates focused on making sure nonhuman sentient beings don't get left behind as we design systems that will scale in the future.
Help us in advancing the field!
Speakers
David J. Gunkel
Distinguished Professor, Northern Illinois University
Talk: Thinking Otherwise: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century
Raphaëlle Martínez
Director of Digital Mobilization, International Council of Animal Welfare
Talk: How We Built and Scaled an Online Advocacy Network in 30 Days
Pengpeng Hu
Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, University of Manchester
Talk: From Humans to Animals: Translating AI Anthropometry for Sentient Welfare
Jamie McLaughlin
President, Three Pearls Charities Inc.
Panel: Solving Legal Problems with AI Animal Reidentification
Noah Behrick
AI Brains Product Owner & GenAI Advisor, Atlas Copco
Panel: Solving Legal Problems with AI Animal Reidentification
Allen Lu
Creative Engineer
Talk: Defensive Accelerationism for Animal Welfare
Jeff Kremer
Animal Welfare Advocate
Panel: Solving Legal Problems with AI Animal Reidentification
Rikard Saqe
Graduate Student at the University of Waterloo
Talk: Using AI to Accelerate Cultivated Meat Research
Matt Fay
Principal Engineer, Prolific Machines
Talk: Delivering the Bitter Lesson to Biomanufacturing
Christopher Krüger
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Talk: The road to net zero
Josh Jarvis Campbell
Philosophy PhD Student, University of Exeter
Talk: Can AI Make Factory Farming Morally Permissible?
Eva Bernet Kempers
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Antwerp
Talk: Contracts with Cows? The Legal Frontier of Animal Speech
Michael Florea
Co-Founder and CEO, Olden Labs
Talk: Phenomics for improved animal science and care
Milo Katz Reed
Filmmaker
Talk: AM I? - A New Film About the Future of Minds
Miles Tidmarsh
Co-Founder, CaML
Talk: CaML, Improving AI values
Derek Shiller
Researcher, Rethink Priorities
Talk: Challenges for evaluating the moral status of AI systems
Noa Weiss
AI and Machine Learning Researcher
Panel: AI & Alt-Proteins: Engineering a Better Food Future
Stien Van Der Ploeg
Executive Director, Animal Charity Evaluators
Talk: AI & the state of Farmed Animal Welfare Advocacy
Karthik Sekar
Lead AI & Operational Technology Architect, UPSIDE Foods
Panel: AI & Alt-Proteins: Engineering a Better Food Future
Jasmine Brazilek
Co-founder, CaML
Talk: The Animal Harm Benchmark 2.0 and its applications
Ria Viswanathan
Research Assistant, Forecasting Research Institute
Talk: Animal Welfare & Digital Minds: Movement Synergies and Conflicts
Justin Barker
Founder of SF Zoo Watch & EcoPark SF
Talk: AI as an Advocate: Designing Better Futures for Zoo Animals
Amalie Farestvedt
Community Engagement Coordinator, Giving What We Can
Talk: How a conversation can save lives
Steven Rouk
Founder, Connect for Animals
Workshop: Using Claude Code for Coding and Non-Coding Tasks
Featured guests
Lewis Bollard
Farmed Animal Welfare Program Director, Open Philanthropy
David Pearce
Co-founder, Humanity+
Jan Leike
Alignment Lead, Anthropic
James Özden
Director of Philanthropy, Mobius
David Meyer
Founder, AdoptaPet.com and Food Systems Innovation
Yaqi Grover
Agritech Investor, Lever VC
Aaron Boddy
Co-founder, Shrimp Welfare Project
Matthew Dominguez
Executive Director, Compassion in World Farming (USA)
Josh Balk
CEO, The Accountability Board
Robin Larson
Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic
Christopher Berry
Executive Director, Nonhuman Rights Project
Gabriel Wildgen
Senior Associate VP of Public Policy, The Humane League
Bob Fischer
Senior Researcher, Rethink Priorities
Mikko Järvenpää
Founder, Worldshapers
Esben Kran
Co-Founder, Seldon Lab
Marcus Abramovich
Entrepreneur and Investor
Agenda
Get involved
volunteer
All volunteers receive a complimentary ticket, and only work for about half of the conference – it's a great way to meet people and contribute to the event whilst still having time to engage with the content.
speak and facilitate
Apply to give a talk, lightning talk, run a stand at our organisation fair, or facilitate any other sessions you'd be interested in seeing. Speakers and facilitators receive complimentary tickets.
suggest ideas
If you have other ideas for featured guests, sessions we should run or topics we could cover, let us know here – we'd love to hear your ideas!
What to expect
“The most valuable part for me was the 1-on-1s. I've found people with expertise on things I need help with, in projects I've set out to do. I've met a lot of people and learnt a lot about digital minds welfare and other kinds of sentience, which is something I wouldn't explore on my own. It was useful.”
“I loved how the conference brought together numerous groups that don't typically interact. Animal advocates could meet and discuss topics with academics studying precision livestock farming and philosophers researching animal consciousness & digital minds.”
“The AIADM unconference was full of interesting people and interesting ideas. By putting different disciplines in the room together, Sentient Futures are helping animal and AI safety advocates think about problems that are neglected and unusual, interesting and important.”
“I found that the unconference sessions led to real, tangible project ideas, and I left feeling like we're on the cusp of something huge for animal welfare!”
“We presented our vision to map the most important sources of farm animal suffering over the next few years... The audience's enthusiasm and interest in our work were truly motivating.”
“AI has the potential to affect nonhuman animals everywhere, and over the past two years, this conference has played a key role in accelerating research about this important and neglected topic. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in AI ethics or animal ethics.”
Satellite events
Pre-EAG Co-working
Feb 9–13th, 10am–6pm | Mox
Join us for co-working during the week between SFS and EAG Bay Area! We'll have some cozy space set aside at our conference venue complete with monitors, free snacks, a nap room and (optional) standing desks.
EA Global Bay Area
Feb 13–15th 2026 | Hilton Union Square, San Francisco
EA Global (EAG) gathers speakers and attendees from the Effective Altruism community who are dedicated to making a positive impact. EAG Bay Area will highlight the broad spectrum of effective altruism causes, such as farmed animal welfare, global health and development, biosecurity, AI safety, & more.
Learn more →SFS Sunday Party
February 15th, 7pm–11.30pm | Mox
Come and join us on the Sunday evening after SFS for an informal afterparty! Sign up through the Partiful link.
… and more!
Previous events
Check out this highlight from AIADM London 2025, or other videos on our YouTube channel. You can read about our previous conferences & unconferences here.
Location
Mox SF
1680 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Our venue is right on the edge of San Francisco's famous Mission District, and is only a 15-minute walk from 16th St BART station. It offers a variety of different spaces, including rooms for talks, focused working, 1-on-1s, group discussions, kitchens and even a nap room!
Attendees will have complimentary access to this co-working space the following week.
FAQs
SFS will be very similar to our AIADM events – there'll be longer talks, shorter lightning talks, an organisation fair, meet-ups and workshops – as well as sessions organised by attendees during the summit!
We feel that the name "Sentient Futures Summit" is simpler and more aligned with our rebrand, as well as being more cause-neutral on what it means to improve the future for all sentient beings.
Through the registration form near the top of this page, or here. Any problems, please contact: bay2026@sentientfutures.ai
You can apply here before the end of the year. This form is for talks, lightning talks, a stand at the organisation fair, and any other sessions you might be interested in running. We'd love to hear your ideas! If you have a great idea for a speaker/ other content that would work but don't want to contribute yourself, you can still fill out the above form! We'd love to hear your ideas.
You can apply here. All volunteers receive a free complimentary ticket, and only work for about half of the conference — it's a great way to meet people and contribute to the event whilst still having time to engage with the content.
We don't want financial circumstances to be a barrier for those who want to attend our events. Aside from volunteering (see above), we also have tiered pricing: you can select a financial aid option at registration to get 50% off the ticket price, or apply for a partial or full scholarship.
While there are currently no plans for any virtual meet-ups, we are expecting some of the talks to be livestreamed on our YouTube channel.
Please reach out to Jonah at bay2026@sentientfutures.ai with any questions you may have!
We've reserved some space in Mox during the week between SFS and EAG for some attendees to co-work with us. Please sign up using the link further up on this page!
Planning team
Constance Li
founder and executive director
Jonah Woodward
event lead
Carolina Oliveira
design volunteer